Fall
by Rjalker
Summary: She walks a razor's edge through the darkness. No one else can see the blade that is their world, and that leaves her the only one that can make the choice. Which way will she fall? Spoiler free because it's all original from my head.


Kara Thrace dances along the edge of a razor. From one end to the other she spins and twists along the blade's gleaming edge. Her feet are calloused, not enough that the blood doesn't flow from the cuts, but she dances on, her eyes closed so that she doesn't have to see the red that stains her skin and marks her path. She ignores the pain, because if she doesn't, she knows that she'll hesitate, and then into the depths she'll fall.

Which way will she fall, when finally she gives in?

To one side lies darkness blacker and colder than anything you can imagine.

To the other, lurks a vast emptiness in which everything is erased and nothing is left.

Which way will she fall?

She stumbles, when the pain becomes too much, and the palms of her hands are left to pay the price when she steadies herself, unwilling to give in. More blood trails down her skin, and its harder to push to the back of her mind now.

The red covers the blade that is the only surface she has, and she slips. She barely has enough time to catch herself before her knees and legs join the cascade of blood that leaves her in a never ending march.

Her life is leaving her, drop by drop, and taking her will to continue with it.

Which way will she fall?

She can't help but wonder, when she continues her dance from end to end. Because she knows she will. There's no other possibility. She's been avoiding it for so long, and she's grown so tired. Her feet are torn down almost to the bone, and she knows she won't be able to continue for long before she has to give up.

But that doesn't mean she won't fight to stay. The blade, the danger, the constant fear and pain are all she knows. She doesn't want to leave it behind. She can't.

So which way will she fall?

To the darkness, and its freezing cold winds she knows will tear the hearts from her chest and suffocate her before she even has the chance to breathe?

To the emptiness, with its deafening silence that she knows won't go on forever, because, someday, someday she'll fall far enough to escape it, to be born into a new body, on a new blade out there somewhere far away?

Which way will she fall?

Not everyone has the choice, this she knows. No one else but her can see the world they really live in. No one else can see the blade they all balance on. Destruction, or death? Those are the only options she has, but its one more than anyone else has been offered.

Destruction, or death? Is there any difference between the two? Which is which? What lies to the right, to the left? Which way will she fall? Which way will she fall?

She knows it's important. One of the most important things she's ever done in her life. But she doesn't know what to do.

Which way? Which way? Destruction or death? Which way will she fall? Which way _should_ she fall? Which is the right choice? Is there a right choice?

Is there even a choice?

When the time finally comes, which way will she fall?

The moment comes sooner than she thought it would, when one mutilated foot begins to slide off the razor's edge. In a moment that lasts an eternity, she has a choice to make. For a moment, she's suspended in the air, both possibilities spread like wings from her back, and all she has to do is fold one, and fall with the other. She can go the the left, or to the right. A controlled fall. But which way?

The moment passes, and she starts to fall. She's running out of time. Left? Right? Destruction? Death? Which way will she fall?

And in that moment before it's too late, words more ancient than even the stars ring through her head.

This is not all we are.

They'd been repeated more often than she could count, but she never understood what they meant.

And in that moment, when the fate of existence rests upon her shoulders, she finally _understands_.

And with the last of the strength that's in her broken body, she shoves herself to the left, and falls, knowing that those around her can't see the blade they're standing on, or the path she's chosen, and won't understand the choice she's made. They can only see through their own eyes, and to them, there is no difference between the sides of the blade. All they see is death.

All those times she'd danced to the edge only to leap back into safety not a moment too soon, all the times they'd watched her lie pale and unmoving in the infirmary after one of her insane stunts managed to save everyone but herself, all the times they watched as she almost killed herself drowning her sorrows in ambrosia, they never really understood.

Because they couldn't see. Not really. They don't know that this isn't the end. It never is. More ancient words repeated into meaninglessness. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. They hear the words, they know them, but they forget the meaning in the speaking of them.

But she knows, and with her last breath before she plunges into the darkness, she whispers a hope for them, for the ones that think she's leaving them behind, because she isn't, she would never leave them alone, and she knows that she's making the right choice.

But they don't know that, and so she whispers, begging them to understand even as her mind starts to fade, "I'll see you on the other side."

And then the world fades, and the darkness is all she knows.


End file.
